Pastors, parents call for answers on Kelly Elementary cheating probe

A group of local pastors, parents and community leaders called on the Clark County School District Wednesday to break its silence regarding cheating allegations at Kelly Elementary School.

“These allegations were made without evidence but have damaged the students, school and community,” said group leader Gene Collins, a former Nevada assemblyman and president of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in a written statement.

More than 90 percent of the students live in poverty and two-thirds of the students are black at Kelly, located near Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards.

District officials didn’t make the allegations against Kelly. The Nevada Department of Education did in its investigation and April report asserting without a doubt that unidentified Kelly staff members changed students’ answers on state tests in 2011-12, and that’s why scores increased that year. The state’s assertions, however, have garnered criticism and doubt due to the lack of direct evidence of cheating at the Las Vegas school.

District officials said they would release their own report in mid-September responding to the state’s findings, but they have remained silent for a month and a half. In response to the community’s call, the district announced Wednesday that its report would be released at the Clark County School Board’s Nov. 13 meeting.

“Our priority has been to be thorough and accurate,” said district spokeswoman Kirsten Searer on Wednesday, noting that the district has spent six months following up on questions raised in the state’s investigation. “We understand that this situation caused a disruption to parents, students and staff at Matt Kelly Elementary School, and we look forward to presenting our report and moving forward in the best interest of the students at Matt Kelly Elementary School.”

The group led by Collins sent one letter to the state education department on Wednesday detailing its grievances with the state’s report, including coming to definitive conclusions without conclusive evidence. Department spokeswoman Judy Osgood said Wednesday that comment couldn’t be provided on the letter because the state hasn’t yet received it.

“We will be able to more fully respond once we have reviewed the coalition’s concerns,” she said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dale Erquiaga led a 17-month investigation with the Nevada attorney general’s office that included subpoenaing school and district staff, confiscating files, fingerprinting student score cards and analyzing the number of answer erasures. While Erquiaga concluded that adults changed students’ answers, he provided no direct evidence and didn’t name culprits.

This isn’t the first time the state’s conclusions have been called into question.

Stephen Augspurger, the executive director of the Clark County school administrators union, reviewed the state’s report. He said in August that it relied on an unusually high number of erasures on multiple-choice state exams to reach a “preconceived conclusion” of cheating through “manipulated and manufactured” evidence. He called on Erquiaga to rescind the Nevada Department of Education’s “flawed” findings.

The local group sent another letter to the district Wednesday.

“The Clark County School District must stay silent no more,” said Collins. “We respectfully ask the district to publicly respond to this situation and see to it that the reputation of Matt Kelly is restored so students and families can again carry their heads with pride.”

In addition to the district’s report on Kelly, the group asked for the district to restore the $200,000 in extra supports to the high-poverty school that were removed after the state’s investigation, issue an apology to the school and its community, appoint a permanent principal, validate Kelly’s 2011-12 test scores that were stricken by the state, and institute a policy requiring proof of alleged wrongdoing before any public report of cheating.

Contact Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @TrevonMilliard